This beer was served on tap at Minneapolis Town Hall Brewery in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Arriving in house pints, the beer showed a reddish honey coloring. A one finger head of soapy, tan bubbles stop atop the liquid, and retained excellently. Cakey chunks of lacing were eventually left in its wake. No haze or sediment was noted, and carbonation appeared to be light. The aroma offered big fruity nectary, grapefruity, and herbal hops, amber and pale malts, chalked cornmeal, chemical phenols, spicy booze, light bubblegum esters, tropical pineapple and mango fruitiness, Juicy Fruit gum, raw ginger, black pepper, cherry flesh, Sprite lemon-lime sugars, cough syrup, vinyl plastics, and syrupy pear juice. Subsequent flavoring boasted pale and caramel malt toast, big bubblegum esters, juicy pineapple, heavy fruity hops and lighter piney and citric hop zing, tomato acidity, apricots, sweet creamer, bittering dried oregano and lemon balm, lemon and lime rind, mallow sugars, red apple juice, hairspray, and cucumber skins. With warmth and through the aftertaste, the hops took on a much more surprising herbal bitterness. The body stood on the full side of medium, which carbonation was medium to high, with wet and frothy prickle to the hard palate. Otherwise, slurp, smack, cream, and pop were okay, and the mouth was left puckered and dried of tannins. The abv was appropriate, and the beer drank more as a sipper.

Overall, we were so excited to find this so close to where we were staying in Minneapolis. This was quite exactly the closest building to our hotel, and we ended up going here almost every night of our visit to try their vast array of different brews. Here, we met a big IPA, with hearty malt presence to work with such massive, massive, hoppiness. The latter became much more bittered than expected, especially through the end of the sip and its aftertaste. The hope, here, became heavily piney, herbal, and harsh to the palate, but in the best way possible. We actually drove to Minneapolis from Detroit the day we sampled this, and due to weather delays it turned into a fifteen hour drive. Getting in late, we only had the time and energy for a single beer to complement our midnight meal of burgers, and boy was it a nice end to our night. Highly recommended if you can find it.

After a pretty disappointing seasonal flight at Town Hall last weekend, I opened this growler in hopes that this IPA would live up to my memories of it (5 yrs ago or so). Happily it was just what I remembered - very fragrant with a fine balance between malt and fresh hops flavors. Hints of grapefruit, pine and maybe bubblegum? Medium-thick body with smooth mouthfeel. This does seem more in line with an English-style IPA in my opinion - a bit sweeter up front, providing a good counterweight to the bitter yet fresh finish. One might argue that it lacks subtlety but the Masala Mama is a crowd pleaser with good reason.